Glad it's you 'testing' your umbilicals like that Dane, and not me
Good to know though, thanks.
Rick - on those Grivels, is that little spike at the bottom all in one piece with the shaft? Because if so that would make it a lot stronger for hanging off.
Kheegster - I think with these systems it's important to compare apples with apples. There were some good test photos around (from BD? Luebben? Dane?) that showed the spikes ripped out of BD tools under a relatively small dynamic load, because they were not designed for that - they were just glued in. So BD were saying you can be clipped into your tools with umbilicals, just don't rely on them to hold
any kind of load. If the picks don't rip out of the ice, the spike will pull out of the tool (and I think in one test, the head broke?). Obviously on such Grivels the latter problem is removed. Rick has also got proper biners on his setup, not the issue BD ones. So on his system, as he has it, the weakest points are probably(?) the pick in the ice and the little loop he has tied from umbilical to QD. If these are both good, then his system is probably fine to hang off - obviously, unless he's posting on SP from the afterlife. In which case the only question would be, did he go up, or down?